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Monthly Archives: June 2013

The Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy has released its latest report based on the findings of a 2012 workshop on water management challenges in the Mackenzie River Basin.

The workshop, which took place in Vancouver from September 5 to 7, 2012, convened several experts in the fields of hydrology, law, economics, and biology with the goal of looking at the legal and scientific principles relevant to creating a co-ordinated basin-wide approach to management. John Pomeroy and Robert Sandford from the Centre for Hydrology contributed to writing the report. The workshop was co-hosted by the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation and Simon Fraser University’s Adaptation to Climate Change Team.

It concludes that hydrological regimes and the environment of the Basin are at risk from global warming and that the water and ecosystems of the Basin are globally important and require Basin residents and Canada to assume full stewardship responsibilities for the Basin. The Report recommends mandatory posting of significant performance bonds on the part of extractive industries wishing to operate in the Basin, increased water monitoring throughout the Basin, incorporation of local and enhanced scientific knowledge in decision making, re-invigorating the Mackenzie River Basin Board, and the use of the precautionary principle for developments and actions which could adversely affect the region. The Report can be downloaded here.

These details were also reported by the CBC, as visible online here, and Professor Pomeroy was interviewed about the report by CBC Radio 1’s The Trailbreaker and CBC TV News. Bob Sandford also contributed to a CTV News piece.

The Centre for Hydrology will be running a course in Cold Regions Hydrological Modelling for U. of S. Graduate Students, from the 4th to the 5th of September 2013. Department approval is required, and the course must be taken for credit.
The course will aim to familiarize students with the principles of object-oriented physically-based hydrological process modelling for the cold regions of western and northern Canada, and train students to use the Cold Regions Hydrological Modelling Platform (CRHM) to create purpose built hydrological models that are appropriate for hydrological prediction problems in western and northern Canada.
On completion, students should be able to describe which physical process algorithms are most appropriate for modelling forested, prairie, mountain and arctic river basins under various levels of meteorological and parameter data availability, and use CRHM to construct and run an appropriate hydrological model for small river basins in western and northern Canadian environments.
More information, including pre-requisite qualifications and details of how to register, is available online here, and also in PDF format.

Centre for Hydrology MSc (and soon to be PhD) student Phillip Harder has captured a fascinating sequence through the late and rapid melt of deep snowpack near Rosthern, SK (here), between 5 April and 15 May 2013.
The melt generated a sudden and impressive runoff response, which was captured by Phillip’s 30-minute time-lapse photography. The video is available here.

CH Director Prof. John Pomeroy has again been in demand by the media: his views were sought by the Calgary Herald for an article on the increasing risks of natural hazards as a consequence of a changing climate. The piece is available online here.

Congratulations to Phillip Harder, who has had a very good week: he was not only awarded a Dean’s Scholarship for his PhD studies at the Centre for Hydrology, but also the D.M. Gray Award for best student paper in hydrology at the Canadian Geophysical Union’s annual meeting.
Phillip’s paper was based on his MSc research on the assessment of uncertainty in hydrological models introduced by non-physical precipitation phase calculations.
Well done Phillip!